“Thank God.”
“You remember the Sabbath Day—check. You can’t honor your mother and father because they’re dead. Haven’t killed anyone since your last confession. Or committed adultery. Or stolen. Or bore false witness. Or coveted your neighbor’s ass. No coveting your neighbor’s wife?”
“Who counts as my neighbor again?”
“Everyone on Earth, my dear.”
“We might have a problem then.”
“About bloody time. Tell me about your neighbor’s wife. Do you fancy her? I hope so. Spare no detail.”
She laughed softly and shook her head. “It’s not like that. Although she is…she’s very beautiful.”
“And you covet her?”
“Not carnally.”
“I’m gutted. How is it then?”
“It’s complicated. I don’t even know what I’m confessing. I just…I want to talk about it with someone, and I can’t talk about it with him. Or with her. Or with the other him. Or the other him.”
“How many hims do you have?”
“S?ren, Kingsley, Zach, and Nico. I can’t tell S?ren because it’s about him. I can’t tell Kingsley because S?ren wouldn’t want me to tell him about this particular situation. I can’t tell Zach because it’s about his wife, and I can’t tell Nico because I keep my relationship with him separate from my relationship with S?ren and vice versa. I need a new him to talk to. So…you’re him.”
“You have as many hims as a hymnal.”
“You’re telling me, Father.”
“Let’s start at the beginning. This lady in question—what’s her name?”
“Her name is Grace.”
“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“He’s told you about her? About his son?”
“You know I can’t answer that,” Stuart said, nodding his head in the affirmative.
“You’re very good at keeping secrets. So you know who Grace is. And you know she had his son.”
“You just told me so if I didn’t know before, I’d know now. Let’s leave it at that. Envy is a sin. Do you envy her for having his child?”
“No,” she said, waving her hand. “It’s not like that at all. Although I asked myself that a few times just to make sure.”
“Why don’t you envy her? Most women would, I think. I assume. I could be wrong. Never been a woman, much to my everlasting regret.”
“Sorry about that. I’ve certainly enjoyed being a woman. I recommend the experience.”
“I believe—and correct me if I’m wrong—that women often desire to have the children of their lovers?”
“They do, yes, sometimes. And their lovers often desire to father their lovers’ children. But I don’t want children. I haven’t felt any strong desire to have children since I was a teenager and maybe not even then, although I certainly fantasied about it. I fantasied about a lot of things as a teenager. But now I can’t even have kids.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. I had a sterilization procedure done recently while I was in France. It’s hard to talk American doctors into sterilizing a woman without children. The French are more open-minded.”
Marcus hadn’t told him about this. He wondered if Marcus knew. “Surgical procedure? Was that a difficult decision?”
“It was a terrifying decision, but not for the reason you might think. I had a pregnancy scare which quickly turned into a cancer scare. Turns out it was nothing but a large fibroid tumor that needed removing.” Her eyes flashed with remembered fear. “When I was nearly as relieved I wasn’t pregnant as I was relieved it wasn’t cancer, I knew I should probably take care of both at once. So I did.”
“Did Marcus know?”
“About the pregnancy scare and the cancer scare? No,” she said. “Not until it was all over.”
“Who did you lean on during that time?”
“Nico, my lover in France. He handles this sort of stuff better than S?ren does. Nico is the eye of any storm. S?ren’s the storm. I didn’t need a storm then. I needed the calm.”
“Was Marcus angry you hadn’t told him?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled, but the relief was greater than the anger. He and Nico have an understanding. S?ren knows when I’m with Nico, I’m with Nico, 100 percent. Nico knows when I’m with S?ren, I’m with S?ren, 100 percent. I don’t call S?ren from Nico’s house. I don’t write Nico love letters when S?ren’s asleep in bed next to me. We call it the Separation of Church and State. It’s working well so far for all of us. A pregnancy would be disastrous, though—especially not knowing which one of them was the father. I’d never been more scared. That’s why I went ahead and had the procedure. I know the Church sees it as a sin. I’ll tell you what I told a nun once who called me out for my pride: Put it on my tab.”